


Unintended Friendships can Save Lives

by whitedandelions



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27126916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitedandelions/pseuds/whitedandelions
Summary: To his surprise, Tony enjoys spending time with Nebula.  After Captain Marvel saves them, Tony extends a hand to Nebula, and in doing so, changes the future.
Relationships: Nebula & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 72
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Unintended Friendships can Save Lives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/gifts).



> happy halloween! Thank you for getting back to the mods so fast!
> 
> I loved your prompt about Nebula finding a family with Team Stark, and really wanted to write a fix-it with Nebula and Tony becoming fast friends especially because of their time on the spaceship. I hope you enjoy!

There’s a poignant silence when everything settles. Stark is still sitting down, staring mutely down at his hands.

They’re the only ones spared. She’s not sure why, not when some part of her wonders if it’s because she’s Thanos’ daughter. But she knows that can’t be true; Thanos had told her enough times that everything would be fair.

She’s just lucky, even if she doesn’t feel like it, not when she looks around at the evidence that no one else was there except for Stark and her. 

There’s no telling what they’ll find when they finally make it back to Earth. She almost doesn’t want to go; Peter’s gone, Gamora’s _been_ gone, and she doesn’t quite know what she’ll do with herself if Rocket and Groot are gone too. Gamora’s her family, but so are the Guardians, and she doesn’t want to be alone again.

But she pushes past that uncertainty and makes her way toward Stark. Stark’s rumored to be a genius and between the two of them, she’s sure they can find a way back home.

* * *

She’s disabused of that notion as time passes. They’re stuck in a spaceship, with oxygen fast depleting, and of all things to succumb to, she had never imagined dying like this.

She had always thought she would die in battle, but now with half the universe gone, it seems like she’ll meet her demise from a poorly stocked spaceship.

It’s almost insulting that she dies like this. She wants to keep living, if only to get revenge on Thanos, but it looks like the universe is going to deny her even that.

It makes her bitter and makes her lash out, but to her surprise, Stark takes all her outbursts without even batting an eye.

And since there isn’t much to do on a spaceship really, Nebula finds herself enjoying her time with Stark. Even as their demise fast approaches, Stark keeps up a jovial attitude, even teaching her some inane games to pass the time. 

She stays silent most of the time, but Stark likes to talk, and she listens as he regales her of tales about Earth. He talks about Pepper, about his desire to have a kid after meeting Peter, and somehow, she ends up being honest because Stark worries if he’ll be a good enough father because his own father was horrid. She knows something about horrible fathers; after all, _her_ father was the one that put them here, and she was never good enough, no matter how much she tried.

They’re more alike than she could have ever imagined, and if she dies here, she finds at least her last days are filled with someone she can get along with.

* * *

Tony isn’t quite sure what he thinks about Nebula. Out of everyone that was up there, he never would’ve thought that it’ll be only the two of them left. It’s not like they had had more than a few conversations before they’re stuck in a spaceship together for twenty-three days, but surprisingly, Tony finds he doesn’t hate her.

He thought he would. She’s prickly, and she doesn’t talk, much, but one day she actually does and Tony finds he likes her wit. He teaches her games, and as time passes, and their impeding doom crouches just a little bit closer, she’s the only one keeping him sane as he realizes he may never see Pepper again. She doesn’t judge him, at least not to his face, and when Captain Marvel saves them, he finds he cares about her.

Of course, he almost loses track of her when he sees Pepper again. Captain America is there too, to his dismay, and he barely stops himself from punching the guy as time passes. After all the chaos of finding Thanos on a different planet and finding that the stones are gone for good, he finds that Nebula and Rocket are planning to set out.

They hadn’t had a moment to talk after this, and Tony’s been in his fair share of situations where he wasn’t sure if he’ll make it out alive. Having near death situations is a surefire way to get to know someone, and even though they’re alive, it almost doesn’t seem real because well, half the universe _isn’t_.

Nebula’s even more prickly than usual, but Tony brushes past it easily in the way he always does, talking faster than she can refute and in the end, he gets Nebula to agree to come over to dinner whenever she’s back on Earth.

She hasn’t met Pepper yet, after all, and Tony thinks the two women would get along.

* * *

Time passes.

Achingly slow, almost. But without fail, the pain dulls. Tony doesn’t wake peacefully; his nightmares still plague him at night, but Pepper is there, and eventually, so is Morgan. He thinks a lot, almost too much, about Peter, but Tony’s known pain. He’s suffered it throughout all his life, so he knows how to compartemalize. To push it down enough that he can focus on the new wonders of his life. 

He focuses on Pepper. On his daughter, Morgan. And eventually, Nebula.

Rocket and Nebula don’t make it down often enough; they’re busy trying to help different planets that were also feeling the effects of Thanos’ actions. But Captain Marvel can cover more ground than they can, and she’s a one woman wonder, so they come down from the holidays when they can remember the date.

He teaches Nebula about board games because he remembers her childlike joy of their makeshift game on the spaceship. She doesn’t outright show her delight, but after dinners, she sits at their coffee table in front of the fireplace until they all come join her. Morgan takes to her surprisingly well, even despite Nebula’s gruff attitude, and often enough, Tony and Pepper would sit on the couch and watch as the two of them play Connect 4.

Nebula’s a killing machine, with about a thousand times more tools than Tony could probably even think of to use to kill someone, but he never worries about having her there. Besides Rocket’s trust, Tony’s spent enough time with her to know Morgan’s safe. It’s nice having Rocket and her there; Pepper can go to work without worrying about just Tony watching over Morgan.

Eventually, one week turns into a month. Then many months when Captain Marvel never radios in. To his surprise, Nebula stays when Rocket decides to set off, and Rocket just shrugs when Tony meets his eyes. Nebula does what she wants, and both Pepper and Tony would love to have her there since Nebula’s slowly becoming one of Morgan’s favorite people.

So she stays.

* * *

Time passes as always.

It’s a nice life. Rocket comes back down and Nebula joins him when he goes back up. She promises to bring souvenirs for them, wherever they’re headed, and Morgan wrinkles her nose because she remembers the stories Nebula had told them. She pats Morgan as she boards the ship, and a few months pass before a few unexpected things happen.

Captain America comes to visit them.

Tony builds a time machine.

Nebula comes back down.

They go on a grand quest to get the stones and to reverse the Snap, and when they’re all together again after the hardships of _that_ , Tony wants Nebula by his side.

But she’s nowhere to be found.

He finds her, and she’s isn’t where she’s supposed to be, and she startles when he grabs her hand. She’s being weird and insistent that she doesn’t want to be there, and she’s weirdly callous when he tells her of Nat’s sacrifice. The two women hadn’t been close, but they had met many times since Nat had been the one handling everything. And Nebula knew how Tony would be hurting, and she would also be excited to see Groot and Peter again because she had told him one night about how much they had meant to her even though she pretended they meant nothing.

So he holds her down and Rocket examines her, and they realize this isn’t _their_ Nebula. It all comes out then, this Nebula that is nothing like theirs spitting out things meant to hurt them, and Tony’s heart falls as he realizes that their Nebula is stuck in her worst nightmare: the time in which she had cared for no one and no one had cared for her. 

They have to go back for her.

There’s a shouting match because after five years of missing everyone and suddenly getting them back in a second, no one wants to risk their life again.

But Nebula had risked hers for them, and of course, the Guardians are willing to go to bat for Tony’s crazy idea, and for a second, it really looks like Morgan will have to watch that video recording Tony recorded for her when he thought he was going to die, but Dr. Strange appears out of nowhere, and since they still have the Time Stone, he’s sure he can figure out a safer way.

Tony can only stay in the past for a minute, but a minute is long enough, and when they exchange the Nebulas without Thanos knowing, Gamora comes with because Nebula had told her everything. 

“You shouldn’t have come,” Nebula says to Tony when they’re safely back in their time, and Tony shrugs because really, who could tell him to do anything? But it’s worth the danger and the risk when the Guardians nearly weep as they realize both Gamora and Nebula are back.

It doesn’t seem real at first that nothing bad had happened. Thanos has no way to come to their time, and their Thanos is already dead. Captain America returns the stones and comes back as an older man, and Tony finds he likes this mellowed out older version of his friend, and they get coffee sometimes after they have a long, long talk. 

Nebula goes with the Guardians, but she also comes back for holidays and stays with them. Peter comes over for mealtimes too, and somehow Thor and Krug get wrapped into their weekly dinners because apparently Nebula plays Fortnite with them. Which explains the angry shouting in the middle of the night, and for Christmas, Pepper and he gift Nebula a state-of-the-art computer. 

Nebula gifts them something, too. At first, Tony isn’t sure what it is. But it turns out it’s metal from her skin that she’s modified, enough so that they can talk even when she’s in space.

It’s weirdly intimate, and it feels significant that she’s gifting it to them. 

They don’t talk about it though; of course they don’t because Nebula doesn’t _do_ feelings. But Tony knows all the same what it means, and his heart is full as he tucks it away somewhere safe.


End file.
